One-off oral exam to be dropped for language GCSEs

Teenagers will no longer face a one-off oral test in language GCSE exams under plans to be announced later this week, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Instead their spoken skills will be assessed over time by teachers, to reduce the stress associated with the single oral examination.

A spokeswoman for the Quality and Curriculum Authority confirmed that the exam-standards body would be publishing its detailed blueprint for oral tests some time this week.

The new-style exams would be taught from September 2009.

She said the requirements would be in line with the recommendations of Lord Dearing's report last year into language learning, which the government accepted in full.

In the report, Dearing said the single oral test was not a reliable test of a candidate's capability and that stress over the exam was discouraging students from taking languages.

"It is interesting that when people spoke about the oral test, that however long ago it may have been, it is often remembered as a stressful experience," Dearing said.

"We therefore proposed that these parts of the examination should be over a period through moderated teacher assessment."

Dearing's report was commissioned by the government after a dramatic fall in the number of students taking language GCSEs, taken typically at age 15 or 16, after they were no longer made compulsory in 2003.

Less than half of GCSE students now study a language such as French or German, down from more than 80 percent in 2000.

Former Chief Inspector of Schools Chris Woodhead criticised the change to the oral test.

"It's another example of the tendency these days to remove everything from an examination that students find difficult or demanding or stressful," he told Sky News.

"If you are being judged in your competence in a foreign language, you've got to speak that language, and that means having a test against the clock."